The water is strewn with myriads of wrecked shad-flies

May 1.

May 1, 2014

A fine, clear morning after three days of rain, - our principal rain-storm this year, - raising the river higher than it has been yet. 

9 a. m. — To Cliffs and thence by boat to Fair Haven. Snakes are now common on warm banks. At Lee's Cliff find the early cinquefoil. I think that the columbine cannot be said to have blossomed there before to-day, —  the very earliest. A choke-cherry is very strongly flower-budded and considerably leaved out there.

I sail back with a fair southwest wind. The water is strewn with myriads of wrecked shad-flies, erect on the surface, with their wings up like so many schooners all headed one way. What an abundance of food they must afford to the fishes! Now and then they try to fly, and fall on the water again. They apparently reach from one end of the river to the other, one to a square yard or two.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 1, 1854

Snakes are now common on warm banks. See April 20, 1854 ("A striped snake on a warm, sunny bank.")